Sir Alex Ferguson has claimed that Manchester City's latest signing Emmanuel Adebayor was "desperate" to join Manchester United or Chelsea instead, and contacted both clubs even after he had agreed his £25m move to Eastlands.

Speaking to The Observer, the Manchester United manager – who also dismissed City as "a small club with a small mentality" – said the striker tried to engineer an alternative move away from Arsenal even as the transfer to City was being finalised.

"At the last minute, from what I can gather, either Emmanuel Adebayor or his agent phoned us after they had agreed a deal with City and then did the same with Chelsea. He was desperate to get to either Chelsea or us."

Ferguson, speaking in Malaysia during United's pre-season tour of the Far East, claimed that Adebayor's move, and those of other high-profile players who have joined City this summer, was motivated by money, not ambition: "When someone offers you that kind of money, it's a big attraction to people nowadays. That is the reason they have gone there."

The 25-year-old said that "silverware and trophies" were behind his decision to join Mark Hughes's side, but Ferguson does not think City will challenge, saying signing the likes of Adebayor, Roque Santa Cruz and Gareth Barry may be the sum total of their success this season.

"Do you know what City's biggest triumph is? It's getting those players there. I don't know if they will do anything with them," he said. "It is not easy to get into that top four so the biggest success of all is to just get the players there.

"There will be three teams to beat. Ourselves, Liverpool and Chelsea will be very close together… The one who has the challenge this season is Arsène. He doesn't have the money and how he uses the £25m from Adebayor will be very, very interesting," he said of the Arsenal manager.

Continuing his attack on City, Ferguson also suggested that Hughes has focused too much on attack in his spending spree.

"For all the buying they have done, they still have to pick a team with balance. That won't be easy for Mark. What's he got, 10 strikers? So if he picks a squad to go to Chelsea he has to leave seven behind, or five at least."

One of those strikers is Carlos Tevez, whose move to the blue half of Manchester prompted City to erect a billboard sporting an image of the Argentinian with the message "Welcome to Manchester" – a stunt Ferguson dismissed as typical of the club's mentality.

"It's City isn't it? They are a small club with a small mentality," he said. "All they can talk about is Manchester United, they can't get away from it... They think taking Carlos Tevez away from Manchester United is a triumph. It is poor stuff."